Climate change is a wake-up call that must be heeded to, and the time for action is right now
Even as we celebrate June 5 as the Wold Environment Day religiously every year, the threat of global warming continues to loom large. With every passing year, the warming warns of an impending disaster if environment issues are not properly addressed.
In fact this June the writing was very much on the wall with Telangana reeling under intense heat as also many parts of the plains of India. Scientists at the India Meteorological Department warn that India has turned hotter in the last two decades, heat waves are projected to be more intense, have longer durations and greater frequency. The rising temperatures across North and South have already resulted in around 1,400 deaths, and the toll may be higher given the fact that many causalities due to heat stroke and dehydration go unreported. It is now being foretold that in the next three decades most part of the plains of India will face the same plight that Telangana is facing this year. Not only will the temperatures rise, but even the summer season will be extended.
A research agency has claimed in its recent report on Heat Stress Index that the future is going to be hot and painful. While the indices indicate a gloomy picture of the years to come, the question that stares us in the face is will we take note of all thisIJ Given the human nature and experiences of the past, it seems unlikely. More so in India where people suffer from a certain kind of selective amnesia which makes them forget the unpleasant things rather easily.
But this short-term memory loss notwithstanding, the fact is that in terms of heat stress we are among the more vulnerable natures of the world. While these warming signals are still not very clear, as enough supporting evidence is yet to come, two things are established beyond doubt. First that the climate change is making the mean temperatures rise across a large part of the country, and second that we are still not ready to accept the reality. Whether this is due to callousness or ignorance may not be easy to conclude, but things are certainly going to go out of hand if we do not see the writing on the wall.
The predicament is something like the metaphor of the boiling frogs that environmentalist author Daniel Quinn illustrated in his 1996 novel The Story of B. He wrote that if a frog is dropped in boiling water, it will immediately try to jump out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on very gradually, it will float there quite placidly, fully unmindful of the impending danger. And as the water slowly heats up the frog will sink in further comfortably, in a stupor, just as we do in a hot bath and will unwittingly get boiled to death.
Scientifically, this story can be refuted on many counts, but that does not make it completely irrelevant. The story sounds similar to the metaphor of the ostrich that buries its head in sand on the face of a threat as if not seeing the danger will ward it off. But that hardly helps. Human actions are degrading the environment and only human actions can upgrade it. And the time for that action is right now. The climate change is a wake-up call that must be heeded to.
The writer is a professor, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (Jharkhand). He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com